New research identifies best supply chain management practices

Businesses and supply chains have witnessed unparalleled – and sometimes daunting – changes through the last two decades. Yet, a handful of resourceful companies have adapted to meet the challenges of operating successfully in an increasingly volatile, yet interdependent, digital economic environment. A recently released white paper studies these firms to identify what capabilities supply chain leaders need to keep their organizations on the right track in the 2020s and beyond.

For the paper, “Winning Supply Chain Transformational Leadership Practices,” sponsored by Daugherty Business Solutions, researchers from the Global Supply Chain Institute (GSCI) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Haslam College of Business interviewed supply chain leaders from 16 benchmark companies across seven industries with experience in Latin America, India, China, Europe and North America to gain their insights into best practices for supply chain management in the 2020s.

“We examine these companies through the lens of ‘transformational leadership,’ an idea conceived in the 1970s and refined over the years,” Daniel Myers, co-author of the paper and a senior fellow with Haslam, said. “Broadly, transformational leaders inspire greater performance in their employees in pursuit of specific goals aligned with a higher purpose.”

Transformational leaders inspire greater performance in their employees.

Drawing on standards set in previous years and applying the lessons learned from the 16 leading companies, the authors further refine transformational leadership in supply chain management for the 2020s and beyond.

The white paper provides a Transformational Leadership Best Practices Pyramid, which breaks downs four key leadership components:

•Culture of excellence inspires consistent and reliable end-to-end E2E supply chain performance

•Operational and process skills cultivate deep functional expertise

•Relationship and communications skills facilitate E2E integration

•Inspirational character drives bold change.

These broad categories are thoroughly explained and further broken down into specific skills (e.g., recognized skills such as delegating, collaborating and influencing are joined by digital communications skills for the new, virtual age). Established, foundational leadership skills are identified for each layer of the pyramid, and the new skills needed to succeed into 2030 are also explored in detail.

In-depth essays from seasoned leaders in supply chain management correspond with each section of the pyramid, offering unique insights into different aspects of transformational leadership. One key 2030 leadership skill, high-speed decision making, is further explored in one of these essays from Daugherty Business Solutions’ Chief Strategy Officer Dave Hoyt. “In the past, supply chain organizations often worked in the background with a longer-horizon, intense cost-optimization focus,” Hoyt said. “Now, these organizations are at the forefront, requiring the ability to be extremely nimble as they respond to a complex, rapidly changing landscape.”

Hoyt added that, in most cases, analytics and data science capabilities such as machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies are being used to quickly analyze alternative scenarios and recommend options for supply chain teams’ decisions.

“Winning Supply Chain Transformational Leadership Practices” introduces a variety of concepts to help expand supply chain managers’ leadership portfolios. However, the most meaningful facet of the material presented may be its broad relevance.

“The leadership practices are not restricted to supply chain management – they are usable across all business functions and industries,” Mike Burnette, co-author of the paper and director of the GSCI, said. “Their universal applicability is important, because the problems of the next decade don’t just challenge supply chain management – they challenge us all.”

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